Sleep
by janeyway
Summary: A collection of one-shots, based on songs with 'sleep' in the title. Ch2 - Annabeth does what she has to in order to get to sleep.
1. Sleep Tonight

**Sleep Tonight**

_I was all white-washed and woven and there by your side,  
__I was always going to fall asleep early tonight.  
__Hell, nobody falls, not when my hand is laid on my heart.  
__At least now when I'm sleeping, I still feel like I'm doing my part.  
_- 'Sleep Tonight', The Maccabees

They had been back for two months. Well, technically they had only been back in New York City for six weeks – back at school for five weeks – but two months ago they came back from the war, and that felt to her like an event worth marking. It was also their two month anniversary.

Sally and Paul were out and they could have stayed home but Annabeth asked Percy to take her out. Nothing special, just pizza, but they liked it that way; anything to simulate normalcy. They sat on opposite sides of a small, round table so Annabeth was able to really watch his face during the meal. And while he laughed at all the right points in the conversation and smiled when she kissed his knuckles to thank him for a lovely date, the smile was tight and the laugh was fake.

Annabeth had denied her feelings for four years, she thought, she could deny his obvious forced joy. At least until they stood in the living room of the Jacksons' apartment. There she asked him, quietly, gently, why he seemed so down, and he let loose the force of the ocean.

Was it his fault the anniversary of their relationship fell on the same day, every month, every year, as the anniversary of their friends' deaths? No. He did not instigate a war against the gods and he most certainly did not instigate a kiss in the dining pavilion with a blue-frosted cupcake. And were they supposed to do this every year, laugh it up in a phony Italian restaurant, eating sauce the colour of Silena Beauregard's mangled body? Make light of the fact that people were killed – no – slaughtered? How could Annabeth enjoy life at all anymore, how dare she plan dates and have a good time when kids had died and blood was on their hands?

At this point, Percy stretched out his hands, and Annabeth saw them tremble, and so did he. Tucking them under his arms, Percy sat down hard on the coffee table and let out a sob.

With three short steps Annabeth reached him. She stood over him for a minute before stooping down to kiss the top of his head.

With that Percy sobbed again and reached out for her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing his face into her soft sweater. With one hand Annabeth held his head to her stomach and with the other she pushed his hair back from his face, over and over.

She soothed him until his tears were spent and his breathing was more controlled. Then she lifted his head from her stomach and wiped his face with her sleeve. He blushed and looked away, embarrassed, a sixteen-year-old supposed hero who had just yelled at and cried all over his hot girlfriend. She took his face in her hands, forcing him to make eye contact. Her grey eyes, usually hard as slate, were warm and understanding and forgiving.

"Let's go to bed," she said.

They slept in sweatpants, Percy's arms around her, his head on her chest. Hearing her heartbeat helped him feel grateful instead of guilty. With all his energy spent from yelling, Percy fell asleep right away. Annabeth stared at the boy who had led an army sleeping peacefully and she felt grateful too.

_I was all white-washed and woven and there by your side,  
__I was always going to fall asleep early tonight.  
__Hell, nobody falls, not when my hand is laid on my heart.  
__At least now when I'm sleeping, I still feel like I'm doing my part._


	2. Long Distance Lullaby

**AN: Thank you so much for the positive feedback from the last chapter! I am completely flattered and very grateful. Sorry for the long wait for an update too, GCSEs are a bloody nightmare. This one doesn't technically have 'sleep' in the title but it fits the theme well enough.**

* * *

**Long-Distance Lullaby**

_Goodnight, soul mate, I know I'm in no state  
__To call you up and keep you up so late,  
__But I just had to hear you talking in my ear.  
__I've been so lonely since you left me here.  
_- 'Long-Distance Lullaby', Stornoway

Annabeth could feel her eyelids drooping as she stared at the maps on the table before her. For five days there was not a pill that Will could offer nor a blessing Clovis could say that would bring her sleep. Now her frantic mind had caught up with her wasting body and each time she blinked it took a little while longer for her eyes to reopen. Ironically, she was on the verge of a breakthrough.

The news the satyr Boris brought that afternoon had ruled out another square mile of California as the site of the Roman camp. Now Annabeth was so close to pinpointing it she could almost taste it. But her taste buds had been functioning at half capacity since day three without sleep and reluctantly Annabeth conceded that she would not find the camp tonight. Or rather this morning – it had slipped past midnight without her realising.

There was a bed made up for Annabeth in the Big House basement. On the nights that she did sleep she was often so tired from going without that she didn't have the energy to traverse across the camp to her cabin. In the months since Percy had disappeared, Annabeth had been no kind of leader. She knew that full well. Her older brother Malcolm had shouldered all the menial responsibilities of head councillor and she regretted having to put him in that position. But in terms of the crap that kept her up at night, that particular problem was pretty far down the list.

There was a glass of water on the bedside table. She didn't know who had put it there. She didn't much care. Kids tended to tiptoe around her these days on account of her permanent frown and legendary temper. Annabeth did not mean to be so curt with everyone, especially since she was so appreciative of the intensive labour they were putting into the Argo II. But the combination of her frustration at her own slow progress and the constant ache in her chest like her sternum had been cracked right open and her heart ripped out of her and the lack of _fucking_ sleep was making her snippy.

Annabeth Chase was an architect and a soldier. She was smart and she was brave. No one in their right mind would call her weak but, she thought bitterly to herself, she had a weakness in the form of one boy. This stupid boy who made her love him and then got himself kidnapped. So most of the time she didn't sleep, and when she did she swallowed twice the recommended dose of Nytol so the minutes before she got to sleep were sort of fuzzy and weren't occupied with thinking. And sometimes – very rarely – she called her stupid missing boyfriend just to hear his stupid voice on the answering machine.

"Hi, uh... uh, you've reached Percy Jackson. I can't get the phone. I'm probably in class. Or grounded. Anyway, uh... leave a message if you want to. If you don't I guess that's cool too. Uh... um, okay, cool." _[When you have finished recording please hang up, or press the hash key for more options.]_

As soon as the beep sounded, Annabeth broke. The first full minute of the recording was just the sound of wet, heaving sobs which, she argued in her defence, had been building over five days and nights without sleep.

She pulled it together. Took two deep breaths, wiped her face on her sleeve and said, in a tremulous voice she barely recognised, "Hey, it's... me. I'm getting closer, I think. We've evicted most of California so we've gotta be close now." Annabeth let out a shuddery, humourless laugh. "It's kind of funny how all that time you were in New York and I was in SF, we were dying to see each other. And now you're in Nowheresville, California, and I'm in Long Island and I'm dying to see you and you can't remember my name." Annabeth choked on the word 'name' and it was a while before she could speak again. "Well, I guess it's not really that funny at all. You're the funny one. I'm just the brains.

"Speaking of which, the boat looks great. You'd be so proud, the way everyone takes shifts, everyone pitches in. They're doing it for you, you know? You symbolise something to those kids. Victory, I suppose. Without you it's like, whatever fight they're fighting, big or small, they don't believe they can win any more. So get your barnacled butt back here, because they _need_ you. Of course, not as much as your needy girlfriend who called your voicemail because—" Annabeth was choked off by another sob at this point and when she spoke next it was in a voice thick with tears.

"Because even though hearing your voice is like a sword to my heart every damn time it's the closest I can get to feeling like you still exist; maybe far away and without any memories, but if your cell phone exists so do you. So do you. And if somewhere out there you exist then I'm not as alone as I feel. And I feel," she sobbed, "so lonely, and so exhausted. In every sense of the word, I am exhausted. I'm working so hard all day to find you and I miss you so hard at night I can't _fucking_ sleep."

Annabeth breathed in and out and wiped her face and cried into the phone. And all the while she prayed to whomever the god of hidden cameras might be that no one ever find out that soldier and architect Annabeth Chase had cried over a boy. A lot.

When she had settled enough to talk again, she addressed the phone, "I'm coming. Hold on. If you could just stay put and try and get some memories back and not die, I swear I'm on my way." Annabeth closed her eyes and struggled to pull them back open. It was definitely time for bed. It was four days past time for bed. "Anyway... I love you," she finished, "goodnight."

Annabeth thought about the message. She thought about what a large proportion of it she had spent crying. She thought about the fact that Percy would not receive this message for months, if ever. She thought about all the other messages she'd recorded over the past eight months, and she did the same thing she had with all the others. Annabeth pressed the hash key.

_[To delete your message, press one. To re-record-]_

Annabeth pressed one.

She put her phone on the table, took a sip of water and got into bed. And all the while she prayed to every god she could name that she would do better tomorrow. Be a better councillor and a kinder person and make some real headway on her search. Before she could even thank Hermes for inventing the cell phone, Annabeth Chase was asleep.

_Goodnight, soul mate, I know I'm in no state  
__To call you up and keep you up so late,  
__But I just had to hear you talking in my ear.  
__I've been so lonely since you left me here._


End file.
